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Review : Just for the record

By Marcus Chown

The Very First Light by John Mather and John
Boslough, Basic Books, &dollar;25, ISBN 0 465 01575 1

IN 1992, the world’s media were galvanised by the announcement that an
obscure NASA satellite had discovered subtle “ripples” in the cosmic background
radiation—the microwave afterglow of the big bang in which the Universe
was born about 12 billion years ago. The satellite was called the Cosmic
Background Explorer, or COBE.

In the aftermath of the announcement, COBE became synonymous with the name of
George Smoot, the team member from the University of California at Berkeley who,
wracking his brains for a way of conveying the import of the discovery at the
NASA press conference, said: “If you are a religious person it’s like seeing the
face of God.” Smoot was propelled to stardom.

But as Smoot took centre stage, his colleagues watched in dismay from the
wings. For though a major figure on COBE, Smoot was not the principal driving
force behind the project. That man was John Mather, and now, in The Very
First Light, he has put the record straight.

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It was Mather who thought up the concept behind COBE in 1974, while he was
still a 28-year-old graduate student. NASA finally gave the idea the green light
in 1981. But the project was in for a rough ride. Mather’s team wanted to launch
COBE on an expendable rocket. But NASA insisted on a shuttle launch.

Then, on 28 January 1986, Challenger exploded into a thousand flaming pieces
in the blue Florida sky and COBE seemed as good as dead. After Challenger, NASA
desperately needed a project to restore its image. It chose COBE—on
condition that it be launched in two years.

At first nobody thought it possible. The task involved slimming the satellite
down to less than half its original weight. But a new design was drawn up and
the team prepared for the final slog.

What happened over those hectic two years, when the lights burned late at
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, is detailed by Mather. It is a wonderful
insider’s account of the day-to-day travails of a big space project.

No outsider would ever dream of the problems faced by the team. Two of the
satellite’s instruments had to work while immersed in liquid helium at
–269 °C. It was so cold that moving parts would seize up and glues would
disintegrate. And if one of the instruments needed fixing, the giant vacuum
flask containing the refrigerant had to be warmed up, agonisingly slowly, to
prevent the cracking of components which expanded at different rates. A loose
nut, and the engineers had to wait week after frustrating week to tighten
it.

Finally, COBE was launched on 18 November 1989. By early 1990, it had
confirmed that the spectrum of the cosmic background radiation was a perfect
“black body”. Then, in 1992, came the discovery of cosmic ripples—the
primordial “seeds” of great clusters of galaxies in today’s Universe. Everyone
was deliriously happy. COBE was arguably the most successful scientific
satellite in history. Then the controversy began.

Smoot stunned his colleagues by collaborating with the Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory on a press release sent out two days in advance of the NASA embargo.
It gave the impression that the work had largely been done by Smoot and
Berkeley. It violated a solemn agreement that he had signed along with other
members of the COBE team. Later, under intense pressure from his colleagues,
Smoot apologised in writing. But the damage had been done. In the eyes of the
public, Smoot was COBE.

The unseemly struggle for scientific credit is only one part of Mather’s
account, however. The Very First Light is more about human triumphs
than human failings. It is the story of an unforgettable journey back to the
very moment of the creation of the Universe.